More Blood, Sweat and Beers

by Lawrence Dallaglio

  The semi-final ties brought the 1999 Rugby World Cup to life. Though Wales was the tournament’s designated host nation, matches were also played in England, France, Scotland and Ireland, with both semi-finals staged at Twickenham. Australia met South Africa in a gripping match, in which Jannie de Beer (who else?) had kicked five penalties and a dropped goal whilst Matt Burke had slotted over seven penalties for the Australians. With Australia leading 21–18 eight minutes into injury time, a Springbok defeat looked inevitable. However, in the last minute referee Derek Bevan awarded South Africa another penalty which de Beer successfully kicked (his sixth) to level the scores at full time.

  The stalemate ensued until the third minute of the second period of extra-time, when from forty-five metres out Stephen Larkham catapulted Australia into the lead with the first, and possibly most important, dropped goal of his career (it was a mode of scoring that was becoming increasingly influential in World Cup tournaments). Burke then followed this up with his eighth penalty score of the game and Australia were through to their second Rugby World Cup final.

  The second semi-final was staged the day afterwards, on Halloween, and it turned out to be a bit of a nightmare for the All Blacks. In a rerun of the 1987 final they were taking on France, and it appeared they had the game sewn up when they led by fourteen points in the second half. However, a few minutes after the restart France suddenly decided to go for it and produced some of the most amazing rugby I’ve ever witnessed. Christophe Lamaison dropped two goals and scored two penalties and then, with the deficit reduced to two points, Christophe Dominici collected a chip from Fabien Galthie to touch down for a try, converted by Lamaison. France now led 29–24 and this was stretched further when Richard Dourthe gathered a Lamaison kick and crossed the try line, Lamaison again converting. Six minutes before the final whistle Philippe Bernat-Salles added France’s fourth try of the game, chasing the ball and beating the New Zealand wing Wilson to the line. Lamaison, almost inevitably now, converted, taking his personal points haul to twenty-eight. In this exceptional display by the French, New Zealand had conceded thirty-three points without reply until Wilson gained a consolation try in the last minute of the game. With the final score at 43–31 the jubilant French made their way into their second World Cup final and the New Zealanders once more returned home unexpectedly early.

  Australia and France met at the Millennium Stadium for the eagerly anticipated final. France had been in this position once before and this would also be Australia’s second final, having won the tournament in 1991. Following two glorious semi-final displays the match did not reach the heights set at Twickenham. The new Millennium Stadium was a fitting venue but unfortunately the pitch was well below World Cup standards and both teams appeared lacklustre, with Australia closing down the French play, prohibiting the freedom and free-flowing running rugby they had enjoyed against the All Blacks.

  Australia won convincingly 35–12 in a one-sided match. Captain John Eales lifted the Webb Ellis Cup and Tim Horan deservedly received his recognition as Player of the Tournament, whilst the highly impressive Gonzalo Quesada of Argentina won the Golden Boot award, having scored a total of 102 points in the tournament.

  There is an interesting historical footnote to the 1999 final. It took place on the same day, 6 November, as the referendum in Australia to determine whether the country should remain in the Commonwealth or become a republic. Many of the Australian players were keen to have their say and it was arranged for them to vote well in advance at the Ambassador’s house in Dublin. John Eales was the first to emerge after registering his preference and faced a throng of eager journalists.

  ‘So what do you make of all this John?’

  ‘It would be interesting if we ended up playing England in the final and beat them, and the republic got up in the referendum.’

  An innocuous and fair comment you would have thought, but before long whenever John was mentioned in the press in England he was described as ‘Republican Captain John Eales . . .’ I suspect John took all this in his stride, until perhaps the second before he was due to be presented with the Cup by Her Majesty the Queen. As it turned out, he needn’t have worried as he explained to me over a beer one day.

  ‘I remember thinking, I hope she doesn’t read the papers. I don’t know if she had read anything or not, but as she handed me the trophy she had a satisfied look on her face, perhaps indicating we’d both achieved what we wanted. On the front page of The Times the following day was a cartoon of the Queen handing me the trophy with the line, “Looks like we both defeated a Republic today.”’

  For the record, the no vote polled 55 per cent and Australia remained as they were.

  If it perhaps lacked some of the emotion generated four years earlier, from a commercial point of view RWC 1999 once again broke all records, generating almost £50 million profit. It also demonstrated the growth in popularity of rugby union, as it was watched by a global television audience in excess of three billion. The sport was now big business and needed careful management.

  A Few De Beers Too Many

  The game has changed immensely in the last dozen years. In the modern era defences are now so much better that it is rare to see a back-row forward carry the ball any significant distance before being swallowed up by the opposition, whereas in the 1999 World Cup I seemed to get under a lot of high balls and go on a charge back up the field. In fact it became a spread bet option entitled ‘Larry’s Carries’ with people betting on how many yards I would carry the ball. They also introduced ‘Mehrtens’ Metres’ (the All Blacks fly-half) and the less well-named, but still popular, ‘Lomu’s Yards’. Whilst I managed quite a few yards in earlier matches, sadly against South Africa in the quarter-final I was man-marked exceptionally well by their No. 8 Bobby Skinstad, who did a great job ensuring I didn’t gain too much ground.

  The other obvious difference in the past twelve years is technology. In the South African match their scrum-half, Joost van der Westhuizen, scored a try early on having clearly been in touch. With only the officials on the pitch able to make a judgement the score stood, whereas today the referee has the option of consulting a fourth official who has the benefit of TV replays if he’s in any doubt regarding the validity of a try (just ask Mark Cueto!). I’m not making excuses, we lost, with Jannie De Beer magnificent as I said, but had that try been disallowed, things could have been different.

  The entire team took the defeat very badly. We had not expected to leave the competition so early and genuinely thought we were in with a strong chance of winning. Everyone had prepared well, both mentally and physically. I think I’m correct in saying all the English players had voluntarily banned alcohol from our diets for several weeks prior to the start of the tournament. Need I say more about how seriously we took the whole affair? In fact, we were all feeling so desolate and numb that we didn’t even go out for a beer after the match. That’s the level of shock we were in. Scary. Still, you can’t let things get you down for too long, especially when we realised it was likely to be the last time that particular squad was going to be together. Manager Clive Woodward was doubtless making preparations for 2003 (which seemed to go okay) and some of the older players were likely to be forced to take the long walk into the sunset.

  So the following afternoon we hit the streets of Paris and decided it was time to have a drink and put the world to rights. Most of the squad were present, including all the Leicester players. Things were always a little more complicated when they were involved. It was a bit like pouring petrol onto a burning fire, anything could happen and it was probably going to be dangerous, not least because most of them had an egalitarian relationship with alcohol. All alcohol had to be treated equally, and therefore drunk in the same quantity as Ruddles beer. Potentially lethal if you’re on a vodka run. Jonny Wilkinson was also involved and in all honesty it was the first and almost the last time I ever saw him drink (there was a sherbet or two consumed after the 2007 final). He was completely stitched up and i
n a bit of a mess by the end of it. Thinking back, he perhaps felt so dreadful afterwards that he made the decision there and then that alcohol was not going to play a significant part in his life, unlike the rest of us who have consistently managed to overcome that feeling regardless of how awful we feel.

  Rather than drown our sorrows we decided to celebrate Joe Worsley, who had made his international debut against Tonga a couple of weeks earlier, and an Irish bar in St Germain was selected as the perfect venue from which to start things off. Everything was going well, the boys were swapping shirts, sweaters, even trousers with the locals and the beer was flowing. From there a few more bars enjoyed our patronage as we continued to drink and swap clothes that had already been exchanged several times before. I remember thinking if this carries on much longer we might end up getting our original gear back.

  The afternoon drifted into the evening and onwards into the night and by 4.00 a.m. we’d reached the Champs-Elysées with its beautiful bars, cafés, luxury speciality shops and clipped horse-chestnut trees (all recalled from a subsequent trip, not from that night). To be honest, the troops did not match the surroundings, all very much the worse for wear, shuffling around in an eclectic selection of ill-fitting clothes. Even our leader and inspiration, Martin Johnson – I need to be careful here – was not shall we say as upright as he could have been. Indeed he seemed intent on inspecting the Parisian pavements from close quarters. As shocking as this next statement sounds, it was time for me to take responsibility, so I called to the one member of the England team who was still in the early stages of warming up, Jason Leonard, and told him we needed to get Johnno back to the hotel.

  Jason stopped a cab as I used all my strength to assist my captain towards the rear doors. I will never forget the alarmed look on the poor cabbie’s face as he repeated the words ‘non, non, non’, and Jason, who is practically fluent in 4.00 a.m. French, replied ‘oui, oui, oui’. With both back doors opened to prevent the poor guy driving off, Jason pulled from one side and I pushed from the other and finally Johnno was safely wedged in. Jason then produced a card from his pocket, Hotel Sofitel, near the Place de la Concorde, and gave it to the driver as I threw a decent number of francs onto the passenger seat. Mission accomplished, Jason looked at me with a satisfied expression on his face. ‘Well done, Lol, he’ll be all right now.’ Obviously I have no idea what happened after the cab pulled away but Johnno was alive the next day, even though he looked like death.

  Back inside the bar we found ourselves in conversation with Leon Lloyd and Neil Back, when a guy complete with the cross of St George painted on his face approached the group. Rather naïvely he decided it was the right moment to tell us in general, and Neil Back in particular, what he thought of England’s performance. Now we can all take criticism, particularly when it’s justified, but in the early hours of the morning during a bit of a session is probably not the best time to deliver it. We were still conscious of our responsibilities, however, and politely agreed it had not been the result we were hoping for.

  That should have been that, but the guy then decided to inform Backy that not only was he a disgrace, but he also lacked passion, all the while stubbing his index finger into Neil’s chest. I can only assume he thought it was safe to have a go at Backy because at 5ft 10in he didn’t appear much of a threat. Schoolboy error. For the record, in my opinion very few people throughout the history of English rugby have played with more passion and desire than Neil Back. It came as a surprise therefore when Backy asked him to repeat what he’d said. Foolishly the bloke did so, and that’s when Backy delivered his own personal, non-verbal, response from very short range. As the guy disappeared over the table behind him, Backy picked up his beer, held it in a very steady hand, smiled and muttered, ‘I thought that’s what he said,’ before returning to the conversation as if nothing had happened.

  Clive Woodward had become England’s coach in 1997 and things started to move in the right direction from then, although probably not as quickly as Clive would have hoped. After a surprise defeat leading up to the tournament he was quoted as saying, ‘Judge me on the World Cup performance.’ A quarter-final defeat was not what he would have wished for, but there was enough support for him to remain in his job. And as we all know, the next four years proved to be very successful.

  The Price of Success

  Matt Perry

  Matt’s a player I know well, we played many games together for England after he’d caught the eye of Clive Woodward during his time as Bath coach. He selected “Pezza” to make his debut in what was his first game in charge of England, against Australia in 1997. From a forward’s perspective he was a fantastic guy to play with as he would always get you playing on the front foot and establish a real target for you on the pitch. At the tender age of twenty-three he became England’s most capped full-back of all time (a record I believe he still holds) and would undoubtedly have gone on to establish an almost unassailable total had the rugby player’s curse not ruined the second half of his career. He sustained a back injury on the Lions tour to Australia in 2001 (playing in all three Tests) which was the beginning of a catalogue of further injuries that eventually caused his early retirement in 2007.

  ‘Pezza is a relatively quiet man, popular throughout the rugby world. He is one of the most modest and unassuming players I have ever met, blessed with immense ability. I sometimes wonder if he knew how good a player he was. He now works for a performance coaching and training consultancy in the South West.

  My only World Cup experience came in 1999. Injury, coupled I suppose with Clive Woodward failing to select me, ruled me out of the triumphant 2003 campaign. The frustrating thing for me was I knew it was going to be successful, or rather I knew the England team was going to have every chance of being successful, primarily due to the approach of our coach/manager Clive Woodward.

  Clive was probably the first England coach who told the Rugby Football Union what he wanted. Those who had gone before him appeared to have resigned themselves to working with what they were given. I remember reading a story in Clive’s book about his first day in the job, when he arrived at Twickenham to the surprise of many of the RFU hierarchy who wondered what he was doing there. Clive asked if they could point him in the direction of his desk. Clearly such a contraption was not something they felt Clive required, presumably thinking that he would initially be spending his time travelling the length and breadth of the country watching matches, followed by time on the training pitches coaching the squad he had scoured the nation to select. Let’s just say Clive got his desk and it was the first of many battles he would win with the RFU in the years to come.

  Clive wanted the very best for all his team; travel and accommodation were first class wherever possible, training facilities were the best available, as were all the coaches and support staff. By catering for virtually every need Clive effectively took away all the excuses. As players we only had ourselves to blame if things went wrong.

  One of the innovations he brought to the squad was the introduction of laptops, with every player being provided with one before the 1998 tour to Australia. You’ll appreciate this was in the relatively early days of the internet and long before broadband. It was Clive’s intention to communicate with the players online, although I think it’s fair to say some of the lads got far more use out of the solitaire and minesweeper games that came preloaded on the computers than from the hardware itself.

  Clive told us that the team selected to play each match would be emailed to the individuals concerned and those not selected would be able to read the reasons why they had failed on that occasion to make the team. All the laptops originated in England, as did the host site for our email accounts, so it was necessary to log on in Australia via the UK in order to have Clive’s messages sent back out to us. This clearly perplexed many of the players, the forwards in particular, with a number of the boys asking, ‘Why can’t he call a team meeting and tell us? After all, he’s in the same bloody hotel!’ Lessons
were given in how to log on, not easy for someone like Jason Leonard, whose index finger would cover at least three keys on the keyboard, and with hindsight additional instruction in how to log off would have been invaluable. Many players either never shut down throughout the duration of the tour or at best remained logged on for hours on end. Younger readers will be interested to know this cost the RFU literally thousands of pounds when the telephone bill dropped through the letter box at Rugby House, Twickenham, a couple of weeks after the tour had ended (no inclusive packages in those days). Clive was possibly a bit too far ahead of the game with regard to technology in this instance, but in others he was spot on.

  He identified the importance of the psychological approach to rugby. Within reason, the squads of all the major contenders for the World Cup were closely matched in terms of ability and fitness, so it was vital to work on the mental strength of the England team to try and eke an advantage over everyone else. It was because of all these innovations that I was so disappointed when my body started to fail me after playing for the Lions during the 2001 tour to Australia.

  Clive was very good at making a player feel special. He knew when to have a private chat with individuals and when it was best to talk to the team collectively. Either way, my recollection is I felt better about myself and my ability as a rugby player after his inspirational words. But there was one occasion when his motivational chat perhaps went a little ‘over the top’, and caused a huge laugh in a team meeting.

  In 1999 England were once again in the same World Cup group as New Zealand, and on the eve of the match we had our customary team meeting, at which Clive would run through all the last-minute details he believed would give us the edge. He spoke about the training we had done, he confirmed the game plan and discussed options if things were not going according to plan. I think I can speak on behalf of the squad when I say we all felt ready.